Sentinel satellites
Also called: Copernicus · Topic: Remote Sensing, GIS and GNSS · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Sentinel satellites belong to the European Union's Copernicus earth observation programme, which began launching them in 2014. Their data is free for anyone to use. Sentinel-1 carries radar. Radar sends out its own microwave pulses, so it sees through cloud and at night. Sentinel-2 takes optical multispectral images at 10 m. Free, frequent data has made them popular for mapping floods, crops and forests across the world.
Example
During the monsoon, when clouds cover Assam's Brahmaputra valley, Sentinel-1 radar images can still show which areas are under floodwater.
Don't confuse with
- Landsat: the older US series (from 1972) with coarser 30 m optical images and no radar.
Related concepts
- Landsat
- SPOT
- Bhaskara satellites
- Indian Remote Sensing satellites
- LISS
- Resourcesat
- Cartosat series
- Oceansat
- RISAT
- INSAT-3DS